Difficulty hearing speech in noisy rooms may be early sign of dementia Difficulty hearing speech in n... Experts are divided over whether treating "cocktail party effect" hearing impairment in mid-life could reduce risk of dementia in later-life 1/1 Experts are divided over whether treating "cocktail party effect" hearing impairment in mid-life could reduce risk of dementia in later-life An impressively large study following more than 80,000 people for 11 years has found that difficulty hearing speech in noisy environments can be an early-warning sign of later-life dementia. The next steps for the research will be to investigate whether immediately treating mid-life hearing impairments can reduce the risk of dementia developing in a person’s senior years.